


a life-changing field trip

by anakinno



Series: Enjoying AoS Season 7 with as Much Angst as Possible [4]
Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV)
Genre: 1970s, 7x06, Blood, Blood and Gore, Canon-Typical Violence, Conversations, Escape, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Kidnapping, Lots of it, Season/Series 07, Serious Injuries, Short One Shot, Wordcount: 1.000-3.000, in the loosest sense, spoilers for 7x06
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-02
Updated: 2020-07-02
Packaged: 2021-03-04 07:02:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,162
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24949663
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anakinno/pseuds/anakinno
Summary: Daisy doesn't know quite what to make of Daniel Sousa, and the blood loss sure isn't helping.
Relationships: Deke Shaw/Skye | Daisy Johnson (mentioned), Skye | Daisy Johnson & Daniel Sousa
Series: Enjoying AoS Season 7 with as Much Angst as Possible [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1773439
Comments: 11
Kudos: 60





	a life-changing field trip

**Author's Note:**

> In advance: I'm sorry. Am I ever going to stop being excited about Daisy and Sousa in the same show? The answer is no. Buckle in for a long ride.
> 
> Apologies for the long hiatus and lack of work! I was not inspired by 7x04 in the least, and I never got around to writing for 7x05, but. Here we are. No Deke this week, though. The warning is for gore/Daisy's injuries described in detail.
> 
> But here you go! Enjoy :D
> 
> Title is vaguely inspired by Avatar: the Last Airbender.

God, Daisy really, _really_ wishes she'd had the sense to put a bullet in Nathaniel Malick's head back in 1973.

She groans, barely conscious, as Malick's lackeys toss her down onto the floor of the warehouse. Daisy aches all over. Her arms sting from the various needles the psycho had used—drawing her blood in order to try and turn himself into an inhuman—and her lower back feels like Malick stuck a knife into it. Well, he had, but _still_. A 1976 spinal tap isn't exactly going to feel like rainbows and puppies.

Her vision blurs as she hits the ground, eyes fluttering shut for a moment. The pain is impossible to ignore—manifesting as a red haze in front of her vision that makes her want to curl up into a ball and cry.

"Daisy? _Daisy!"_ A male voice, cutting through her barely coherent thoughts and the blur of pain. Daisy makes a small noise of confusion in her throat as she tries to pin it down, haphazardly: _Ward? Lincoln?_ _Deke?_

No; someone else. Not Lincoln. Not Deke.

"What did you do?" The man sounds upset, demanding, but somehow Daisy doesn't think it's directed at her. It's too painful to open her eyes to check, though, so she just slumps against the floor. God, she wants to quake something, but she doesn't know what Malick _did_ to her. Fear twists in her stomach, almost overwhelming, at the thought.

Distracted, she barely hears Malick's answer. "Took as much... blood... spinal fluid... from needles to knives."

The door slams shut after him—shaking the entire room—and she feels, rather than sees, the man beside her take her head in his hands. Her semi-conscious mind _finally_ supplies a name: _Daniel Sousa._

"Daisy?" Sousa sounds extremely concerned. He threads his hands through her hair, forcing her to blink up at him wearily. "Daisy! Stay with me!"

"Jia—Jiaying," she manages, grimacing at the sharp stab of pain that the words drive through her throat. She has to—has to let him know she'll be okay. She can... she can do this. "It happened... it happened—happened before."

He shushes her gently, holding her head in his hands. It feels... surprisingly _nice._ Daisy relaxes into the touch and shuts her eyes, letting herself float into the pain. Unconsciousness threatens the edges of her vision as she gasps out, "Jiaying—Jiaying—it—"

"Daisy, Daisy, come on," he says, pulling her up so that her head is resting in his lap. She resists the urge to struggle—she hardly knows this man—and instead gasps, "Jiaying," one more time before he starts talking. "I can—I can't—"

"You wanted to hear my story, right?" he says, holding her tightly as she gasps in pain. His words blur together, but she's grateful for the white noise. It distracts her from the blood and the pounding pain of her hand. "Yeah, it was, uh—it was foggy."

She doesn't hear the story after that—she's too busy trying to stay conscious, to tell this idiot that _she has a plan,_ she has a tool. But the background noise of Sousa's gentle voice, going up and down, is more soothing than she would have expected. Daisy finds herself drifting again until Sousa pats her shoulder.

"Hey, hey, hey. Stay with me," he says, and he sounds... _concerned._ For her. If Daisy keeps her eyes closed and ignores the particular cadence of his voice, she can almost trick herself into thinking that Lincoln is the one speaking to her. _From beyond the grave._ "He stayed, an' he kept talking to me. Carried me back across the line." Sousa's voice continues, calm despite his fast pulse that Daisy can feel from her position leaning on his leg. She shifts, brings her hands up with the metal tool embedded underneath her skin, as he sighs.

"He just kept tellin' me, 'We are going home.'" He trails off, sounding pained—even in her weakened state, Daisy can sense the hurt behind the words when Sousa adds, "And at some point, I was in a field stretcher and Mike—Mike wasn't. So consider my yapping me passing on the favor." He leans in, tucks her hair behind her ear, and murmurs. "We are going _home,_ Agent Johnson. You hear me? We're _going home._ But you have got to _fight."_

Daisy breathes in sharply as she focuses on his words. She pushes her hands, bloodied and still handcuffed, into his lap beside her face. He takes her hand and opens her fingers gently; she gasps out in pain at the feeling as he pulls the metal from beneath her skin. When her flesh squishes, blood dripping, Daisy thinks she's going to be sick. Her stomach turns as Sousa holds up the tool to the light, eyes wide in admiration.

"You got plenty of fight left in you after all, huh," he says, and sets about opening her handcuffs first as she slumps back to the floor, hay flying everywhere. "Come on, Daisy. Come _on."_

He says the last part almost to himself, a murmur in her ear. She gasps wetly, coughing up a little bit of blood, as he shifts to break open his own handcuffs. 

"Sou—sa," she breathes, fighting to get out both syllables. "Sousa."

"Come on. You're not dying on my watch," he says. "I got a plan."

"No." She struggles for breath. Every emotion she's ever had is probably clear on her face. Unbidden, the thought of Deke flashes into her mind, and she winces. "No. Sousa. Tell... tell Deke—"

"You tell him yourself," Sousa says, no-nonsense and just as briskly efficient as Jemma Simmons herself. "We're getting out of here."

Daisy inhales deeply before she says, all in one breath, "Tell-Deke-I-I-miss-his-lemons-and-and-and-I'll-miss-him-too." It's a struggle to get the words out, but the look on Sousa's face is worth it. He frowns down at her as he picks her up gently in his arms, almost like a bridal carry, despite his bad leg. 

"Lemons?" he asks, then shakes his head. "Forget it. I don't want to know. You're going to make it, Daisy, and then you can tell him all the love-confessions-sappy-bullshit you want to. To his face."

She almost bursts into tears—how can he be so _kind_ to her after barely knowing her for a day?!—but then Sousa stumbles when the entire room is sent shaking, as if Daisy had just quaked it, and her entire body feels as if it's been lit on fire. The pain, which had receded to a dull ache, is back with full force. Daisy's eyes slip closed again, and she feels blackness threaten the edges of her vision.

_"Daisy? Oh, you son of a bitch—"_

Sousa's concerned voice, challenging Malick no doubt, is a blur of syllables to her as she slips back into unconsciousness. It welcomes her with open arms, which feel suspiciously like Daniel Sousa's, and Daisy Johnson _lets herself go._

**Author's Note:**

> Some dialogue is lifted from 7x06.


End file.
